Arctic Script Lab 2026 - Selected Projects

Arctic Script Lab is a script development programme for emerging screenwriters and writer-directors creating narratives grounded in Arctic and Nordic experience — environmental, social, cultural, and political.

In its pilot edition, the hybrid lab brings together 10 emerging screenwriters working on 8 Nordic projects, developing at treatment level, deepening thematic focus, and looking to connect with industry representatives during RIFF Industry Days.

Participants are working on their first or second feature-length fiction or documentary film. The lab's online sessions run 7–9 August, followed by an in-person part in Reykjavík from 30 September to 3 October 2026.

RIFF Industry Days is proud to announce the eight projects selected for this first edition, mentored by Icelandic director and screenwriter Dagur Kári, in partnership with Nuuk International Film Festival and co-funded by the Nordic Culture Fund.

Aviliaq — Akku Kristensen, Mo Tan

Genre: Dark Comedy
Duration: 100 min
Country: Greenland, Poland
Language: Greenlandic
Type of project: Fiction feature

Synopsis
After his partner leaves him for a Danish-Greenlandic bureaucrat, a cowardly fish factory worker, Malik, spirals into a darkly comic revenge. He struggles to prove he is not destined to repeat the tragic Qivittoq— but when his blind rage meets the ancient Aviliaq covenant during a deadly blizzard, the resulting loss forces Malik to confront the wreckage of his identity.

Statement
The seed of Aviliaq was planted when I encountered this single Greenlandic word — in contemporary usage, the man who takes another's wife; in traditional Inuit culture, a sacred covenant of absolute trust between a hunter and the sworn brother he entrusted with his family. This duality is the heart of the film.

Through Malik, a deeply flawed, ordinary man, the story explores how modern Greenland navigates the tension between ancient cultural memory and the lingering shadows of Danish colonization, avoiding simple polarizations like colonizer versus colonized. Set against an unforgiving landscape, Aviliaq is both a darkly comic character study and a quiet meditation on identity — asking, in a world shaped by cultural erosion, how we find our place once again.

Bio — Mo Tan

Born in China and based in Warsaw, Mo Tan graduated in 2018 from the Directing Department of the Polish National Film, Television, and Theatre School in Łódź. Her documentary and narrative work consistently examines cultural clashes and human dilemmas.

Filmography — Mo Tan

Confessions of a Mole (2025, doc, 92 min) — world premiere in Envision Competition, IDFA 2025, Best Debut nomination; Best Debut Award, Millennium Docs Against Gravity 2026.
Sunrise (2021)
Licentia Poetica (2018)
Woo (2016)
Cactus (2013)

Bio – Akku Kristensen:
A Greenlandic writer whose voice is forged in the working-class realities and cultural landscape of his homeland — years in construction, harbour cargo, and hospital work shaped his early engagement with the friction between Inuit identity and Danish influence. Aviliaq is his debut screenplay, written after moving to Poland.

Filmography – Akku Kristensen
Aviliaq is Akku Kristensen's first screenplay.

Hundadagar (WIP) – Andrea Björk Andrésdóttir

Synopsis
When Jörgen, a Danish captain in London during the Napoleonic Wars, finds himself in debt, he enters a business venture with merchant Samuel Phelps and sails to Iceland, where famine looms due to war. When the local governor forbids them to do business, the men decide to arrest him and liberate Iceland from Denmark — what could possibly go wrong?

Statement
The idea began in 2012 while transcribing Jörgensen's own hand-written prison defence, preserved in the British Library — his character and the farcical nature of these events felt perfect for the screen. Told in three languages — English, Danish and Icelandic — the story is a clash of two warring empires on the traffic island that is Iceland, and lends itself naturally to multi-national cooperation.

Its key themes are colonialism, the pitfalls of masculinity, capitalism and class unrest; examining the past to reveal something about the present. The tone, inspired by The Favourite, Barry Lyndon and The Duellists leans into comedy as its guiding light.

Bio
An Icelandic-born, Berlin-based director, visual artist and comedian with a background in illustration and animation. Active in Berlin's English-speaking comedy scene since 2018, she has written and developed a comedy series about the Icelandic Sagas with comedian Hugleikur Dagsson, produced by RVK Studios for RÚV (2027), serving as Assistant Director and Animation Director on the series.

Filmography
Voice Message (2025, short, writer/director) — premiered at LA Femme International Film Festival, Budapest.
Ögrum skorið (8-episode TV series, writer), RVK Studios, premiering on RÚV in 2027.

Electrified – Laurens Pérol and Joshua Jádi

Genre: Thriller, Drama, Environmental
Duration: 90 min
Country: Norway, Austria, Germany
Language: Norwegian, English, German
Type of project: Fiction feature

Synopsis
A mysterious force turns Tromsø's power grid on and off like a heartbeat. Blackout specialist Emil, 60, must fight between saving the city and keeping a promise to his estranged daughter Alma, 31, a physicist on the edge of a career-defining breakthrough.

As both chase control, they risk losing everything — including each other and themselves — to the darkness that finally claims them both.

Statement
Inspired by the true story of a high-voltage technician who collapsed after years of mounting pressure, Electrified explores the collective sensation of being "electrified" from a radically personal perspective — individual burnout triggering a collective blackout.

Electricity works as a metaphor for performance, connection, and the invisible: what is left of us if we face the standstill we fear most? The film is also a father-daughter story, about the need for love, absence, and what we sacrifice to please others, in a society that demands constant delivery.

Bio – Laurens Pérol
Born 1995 in Stuttgart, based in Norway and Austria. Studied Moving Images at Filmkunstskolen i Kabelvåg (2017–20), currently completing an MA in Directing at the Vienna Film Academy. Has assisted acclaimed Norwegian directors Ole Giæver and Itonje Guttormsen, and was selected as a resident at the Ingmar Bergman Foundation on Fårö in 2026.

Filmography – Laurens Pérol
Å ØVE (Practice) — premiered at the Norwegian Film Festival 2023; Best Feature Debut (Nordic Film Days Lübeck), Best Narrative Feature (Green Film Festival Kraków), Critics Award (Hof International Film Days); 30+ festivals worldwide.

Bio – Joshua Jádi
A writer and director, alumnus of Berlinale Talents, Torino ScriptLab, Sarajevo Talents, RIFF Talent Lab and Locarno Academy Summer School, and a member of the European Film Academy since 2025.

Filmography – Joshua Jádi
Who Is Afraid of God — feature debut as writer, directed by Rosa Friedrich, shooting autumn 2026.

Goods — Hilke Rönnfeldt

Synopsis
On board a research ship amid the North Atlantic, a scientist and a captain meet. One is digging deep into sea soil, determined to extract every secret of this world; the other sails with the elements, knowing nature is unpredictable. This could have been a love story.

Statement
Before becoming a filmmaker, I worked as a ship's officer at sea, where I followed the early ventures of deep sea mining and its hailed potential to solve tomorrow's energy crisis. Is this another example of our constant hunger for more — and does it collide with our need for rest, peace and love?

The film tells a story about the impossibility of connection, with nature and with another human being, when all you've ever learned is to consume. It leans into archetypical saga storytelling and genre elements, while giving the sea its own point of view through a daring, visceral visual language.

Bio
A screenwriter and director working across Iceland, Denmark and Northern Germany, and alumna of Torino Script Lab, LIM – Less Is More, Berlinale Talents, and Oxbelly Episodic Lab, selected for European Film Promotion's Future Frames. She previously worked as a programme assistant at RIFF and currently advises Stockfish Film Festival and distribution agency NORRA.

Filmography
A Study of Empathy (short) — Golden Leopard, Locarno Film Festival; pre-nominated for the Academy Awards, European Film Awards and Danish National Academy Awards.

Unanchored (5x25 min TV mini-series, writer/director) — winner of the Grimme Award for TV fiction.

Holes to Hell — Trygvi Danielsen

Synopsis
Teitur is a father, works in an old people's home, and owes the wrong people a lot of money. In desperation, he becomes a drug mule for a new, mysterious drug with incredible effects — and soon finds himself in the middle of a battle between powerful forces from around the world using the Faroe Islands as a testing site for the future.

Statement
This story reflects the rise of organized crime in the Faroe Islands and the 2020s geopolitical tensions of an isolated territory that can be a useful tactical location in times of war. It's also a story about regret and a troubled conscience — the folkloric Huldufólk creatures manifest Teitur's plagued conscience, trying to cleanse him spiritually until he surrenders to his own psyche.

The magical properties of the drug in the story also draw parallels to the rise of AI and questions of spiritual enlightenment.

Bio
A 35-year-old Faroese writer, director and producer who has made a host of short films, music videos and music films, plus one previous feature, 111 góðir dagar (2021), which premiered at Stockfish Festival in Reykjavík.

He is also a musician and author, having released 10 albums and 4 books, and holds two bachelor's degrees and a master's in creative writing and literature from the University of the Faroe Islands.

Filmography
111 góðir dagar / 111 Good Days (2021) — feature debut; premiered at Stockfish Film Festival, Reykjavík; theatrical run at Bíó Paradís, 2022.

Pearl of the North — Pétur Óskar

Synopsis
Pétur is back on the island he spent years escaping. His mother needs looking after. His father is there for her, in the only way he knows how. The place is 164 people, one street, and Norwegian investors have just arrived with plans to sell it off piece by piece. 

Statement
This film comes from my life and from Iceland, a country I looked at from the outside long enough to see what people on the inside have stopped noticing. A country slowly selling itself.

Every person carries three faces: one for the world, one for the people they love, and one they never show anyone. The number three runs through the film like a pulse, drawn from Norse mythology and Samsara.

Bio
An Icelandic actor, musician and screenwriter born in Luxembourg in 1984, trained at Cours Florent in Paris and under Thomas Ostermeier and Falk Richter at the Schaubühne Berlin, with a career across five languages.

Pearl of the North is his first feature screenplay, drawing from his own life and his deep connection to Iceland.

Filmography
Screen credits include And Breathe Normally (Sundance 2018), Capitani (Netflix, Luxembourg), Trapped (season 2), Tatort, Das Traumschiff , and the upcoming 200 Kópavogur, by Grímur HákonarsonAs musician Oscar Leone, he has twice been nominated for the Icelandic Music Awards.

Sokli (working title) — Elina Talvensaari

Synopsis
A mine is planned on untouched land in a lesser-known part of Finnish Lapland. It would not just destroy the land, but sever the ancestral connection a group of local elder women have to it. An ode to meaning, Sokli reveals the unspoken histories, quiet relationships, and unseen meanings beyond the surface.

Statement
I first met the opponents of the Sokli mine at the Savukoski Dry Meat Market — mostly local women over sixty, who'd strung articles about the mine from the ceiling of the Nature Centre, each one laminated by hand. Opposition to mines is usually argued in environmental terms; but why must protection hinge on the discourse of endangered species, rather than value to people?

My tie to the area is conflicted — I feel a duty to grasp the mine's harms, yet don't fully "feel" what the locals feel, and the film uses that gap as a method. I will film now, before anything is built, so the camera can witness events as they unfold.

Bio
A Finnish documentary director known for intimate, visually precise films about memory, place and the quiet drama of everyday life, whose work has premiered at Venice and IDFA. Her debut feature Lady Time (2019) was widely praised and won the Jussi for Best Documentary Film in 2021. She collaborates with Aamu Film Company and long-time editor Okku Nuutilainen.

Filmography
Lady Time (2019) — premiere at IDFA, opening film of Nordisk Panorama 2020; Jussi Award (Best Documentary), Thessaloniki FF Special Jury Award.

How to Please (2023) — premiere at IDFA; Risto Jarva Prize (Tampere FF), Jussi Award (Best Short Film).

Purity and Danger (2016).

How to Pick Berries (2010) — premiere at Venice; Uppsala Grand Prix 2011, Tromsø Palm 2011.

The Ship That Wasn’t There — Claus Pilehave

Synopsis
Inuk tries to find new information about a ship that mysteriously sank on its journey from his childhood hometown of Qaqortoq. During his search, it becomes clear that Greenlandic knowledge of local Arctic conditions has never been part of the story of the accident — and Inuk is in for a surprise about what Inuit knowledge can reveal about the mystery.

Statement
Growing up in Qaqortoq, South Greenland, meant growing up with the sinking of the M/S Hans Hedtoft as a close, personal reality — the town was the ship's final port of call before it was lost in January 1959. Beyond the loss of life, the tragedy had lasting consequences for Greenland's development, from ice reconnaissance to new heliports and airports, and it unfolded during a period of profound transformation for the country.

For many, the tragedy confirmed a notion of Greenland as something alien, something beyond the scope of modernisation — and it has been described many times in books, articles and television, but never in a feature film, largely through a Danish lens focused on the ship's technical specifications. Told through sweeping landscape shots, close-ups and simple animation, the documentary sets out to offer a more nuanced, more Greenlandic perspective — using the landscape and a rich soundscape, from birdsong and outboard motors to the roar of the sea, as more than backdrop. Ultimately this is a story of the Inuit people: of loss, longing, hope and reconciliation, and of the forces of nature that remain powerfully present in the area today. (by co-director Inuk Jørgensen).

Bio
A trained journalist based in Copenhagen, Claus has made a number of TV documentaries as scriptwriter and director, including Greenland’s White Gold(55 min), made together with Greenlandic director Otto Rosing. He is currently working on this documentary about the relationship between Greenland and Denmark with Greenlandic director Inuk Jørgensen. He completed a screenwriting summer course at the European Film College in 2022.

Filmography
Greenland’s White Gold (55 min documentary, co-director with Otto Rosing).

To learn more about The Arctic Script Lab see here.